The "Celebgate" hack led to the online publication in 2014 of hundreds of nude photos of celebrities including Rihanna, Avril Lavigne and Gabrielle Union.

The statement did not refer to the victims by name, but several of the victims spoke publicly about the pictures.

In May, Collins entered a guilty plea in connection with hack, and admitted to a "phishing" scheme to obtain passwords, in order to then get nude pictures from the victims' cloud online storage accounts.

However, officials said there was no evidence that Collins published the pictures online.

"Hackers violate federal law whenever they access private information stored online and in digital devices," said Eileen Decker, US attorney for the central district of California.

Decker said that her office will hold hackers accountable, "even when they do not sell or distribute the stolen data."

By gaining illegal access to the email accounts, "Collins accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, many of which belonged to female celebrities."